BASHAR ASSAD

Lebanon's parliament has failed to elect a president, just weeks before incumbent President Michel Aoun's six-year term comes to an end.

Some of the West’s fiercest critics have made their case in the closing hours of the U.N. General Assembly meeting of world leaders.

Plans by news organizations that have been in place for years — even decades — to cover the death of Queen Elizabeth II were triggered and tested when the event took place.

Syria's state-run news agency reports that an Israeli strike has hit Damascus International Airport and other areas south of the Syrian capital, killing five soldiers.

Syria's transport ministry says the international airport in Aleppo will resume work days after the facility was put out of commission by an Israeli missile attack.

Activists and first responders say Syrian government airstrikes over the country’s northwestern Idlib province have killed seven civilians and wounded at least 12

An opposition war monitor and a paramedic group say four children were killed when a mine and explosives left inside an abandoned apartment went off in a rebel-held town in northern Syria

An Israeli attack targeting a Syrian airport tore a hole in the runway and also damaged a nearby piece of tarmac and structure on the military side of the airfield

Forty years since it was founded, Lebanon's Hezbollah has transformed from a ragtag organization to the largest and most heavily armed militant group in the Middle East.

Israel has launched airstrikes targeting Syria's Aleppo International Airport.

Satellite imagery showed widespread destruction at a giant military facility in western Syria targeted in a recent Israeli airstrike.

A Syrian opposition war monitor and a paramedic group say a rocket attack on a crowded market in a town held by Turkey-backed opposition fighters killed 15 people and wounded dozens.

The stabbing of author Salman Rushdie has laid bare divisions in Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim community.

Syria has denied it is holding U.S. journalist Austin Tice or other Americans, a week after President Joe Biden accused the Syrian government of holding him.

The first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine under a wartime deal appears to have ended up in Syria — even as Damascus remains a close ally of Moscow.

Mourners have poured out in large numbers onto the streets of Tehran to pay their respects to several Iranian officers killed in Syria, a testament to the human cost of Iran’s involvement in the civil war and a public display of nationalist fervor as nuclear talks resume in Vienna

Mourners poured out onto the streets of Tehran on Thursday to pay their respects to several Iranian officers killed in Syria, a testament to the human cost of Iran’s involvement in the civil war and a public display of nationalist fervor as nuclear talks resume in Vienna. The remains of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard members were recently recovered in Khan Tuman, a village 9 miles (about 15 kilometers) south of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city that was for years the war’s most important front line. Iran has increasingly admitted casualties since it intervened to rescue Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, a ground presence that coincided with Russia’s air campaign and helped Assad recover control over most of the country.

A Syrian cargo ship carrying what Ukraine says is grain stolen by Russia has docked in Lebanon

The Lebanese government’s plan to start deporting Syrian refugees has sent waves of fear through vulnerable communities already struggling to survive in their host country.

Syria says it is formally breaking diplomatic ties with Ukraine in response to a similar move by Kyiv

Russian President Vladimir Putin won staunch support from Iran for his country’s military campaign in Ukraine, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei saying the West opposes an “independent and strong” Russia.

Backed into a corner by the West, Iran is ramping up uranium enrichment, clamping down on dissent over its worsening economy and deepening ties with Moscow.

The U.N. Security Council has approved a resolution extending humanitarian aid deliveries to 4.1 million people in Syria’s rebel-held northwest for just 6 months in a victory for Russia.

Syrian state media say that President Bashar Assad has made a rare visit to the northern province of Aleppo to inaugurate a power station that was once held by insurgents and suffered wide damages during the war

The U.N. Security Council has failed to extend humanitarian aid deliveries to 4.1 million Syrians in the rebel-held northwest from Turkey after Russia vetoed a resolution for a year-long extension and got insufficient support for its resolution for a six-month extension.

The U.N. Security Council has delayed an expected vote on extending humanitarian aid deliveries to rebel-held northwest Syria from Turkey after failing to reach a compromise.

Syrians in the last major rebel stronghold of the war-torn country are living in fear of the effects of Russia closing down the only border crossing into the northwestern province of Idlib.

Syrian state media says Israel has carried out an airstrike on a coastal Syrian village near the border with Lebanon wounding two people

Iran’s foreign minister Saturday condemned an Israeli airstrike on Syria earlier in the day and said Tehran opposes any military operation by Turkey in Syria’s north. Hossein Amirabdollahian made his comments at the start of a visit to the Syrian capital Damascus, where he was expected to discuss mutual relations and regional affairs with top Syrian officials. Iran has been one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s strongest backers, sending thousands of fighters from around the region to help his troops in Syria’s 11-year conflict.

Opposition activists say Syrian forces have conducted a missile strike on a vehicle carrying members of a Turkey-backed armed opposition faction in a rebel-held part of the country’s north and nine gunmen were killed

Syrian state media is reporting that hundreds of Syrian paratroopers took part in a joint drill with their Russian counterparts in the war-torn country in the second joint maneuver this month

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is certain to dominate an upcoming NATO summit in Madrid.

Aid agencies say that if the U.N. Security Council does not extend its approval of deliveries to rebel-held parts of northwestern Syria in three weeks, food supplies will be depleted by September in the region that is home to some 4 million people

Syrian state TV says the international airport in Syria’s capital will resume flights after nearly two weeks following an Israeli airstrike that caused serious damage to the facility

A new ambassador from Bahrain has formally taken up his post in Syria, the country’s first full diplomatic mission there in more than a decade as Damascus continues to improve its relations with Gulf Arab states

A new ambassador from Bahrain has formally taken up his post in Syria, the country’s first full diplomatic mission there in more than a decade as Damascus continues to improve its relations with Gulf Arab states.

A Syrian pro-government newspaper says Syria has suspended all flights to and from Damascus International Airport after an Israeli airstrike hit an area close to the facility

Syria’s state television says that Israeli missiles have targeted Syrian army positions south of the capital of Damascus, causing material damage but no casualties

Residents in northern Syria are bracing for a new fight since Turkey's president threatened a major military operation to push back Syrian Kurdish fighters and create a long sought-after buffer zone in the border area.

Dutch authorities have arrested a 34-year-old Syrian asylum-seeker accused of war crimes

Final results in Lebanon's weekend parliamentary elections show that the militant Hezbollah group and its allies have lost the majority of parliament seats they had held since 2018.

The Siyam family believed for many years that their adult son was being held at a government prison after he went missing at a checkpoint nearly a decade ago.

The deeply divisive issue of the militant Hezbollah group's weapons has been at the center of the upcoming vote for a new 128-member parliament in Lebanon.

Iranian media says Syrian President Bashar Assad was in Tehran for a rare visit to meet Iranian leaders.

Syrian President Bashar Assad met with Iranian leaders in Tehran on Sunday, Iranian state-linked media reported, marking his second trip to major wartime ally Iran since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011. Nour News, a website close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported that Assad met Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi earlier in the day.

President Joe Biden has met with the parents of American journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in Syria 10 years ago.

Russia says that Turkey gave it advance notice before moving to bar Russian planes from flying to Syria over its territory.

Russia’s new offensive in eastern Ukraine reflects Moscow’s hope to reverse its battlefield fortunes after a catastrophic seven weeks of war.

The next chapter of the war in Ukraine could see Russia bringing in greater numbers of battle-hardened fighters from Syria, observers say.

The Russian warship now known as the Moskva began its life as the Slava, or “glory” in 1979 at the height of the Cold War in what was the Soviet republic of Ukraine.

German prosecutors say a man who allegedly launched a grenade into a crowd of civilians waiting for food in Damascus in 2014, killing at least seven people, has been charged with war crimes and murder

Legal and moral taboos were shattered with the use of chemical weapons during Syria’s civil war

Legal and moral taboos were shattered with the use of chemical weapons during Syria's civil war.

Russia is readying a massive, new offensive in eastern Ukraine, hoping to reverse its fortunes on the battlefield after a catastrophic start to seven weeks of war.

The mayor of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol says more than 10,000 civilians have died in the Russian siege of his city and the full death toll could surpass twice that number.

Russia has tapped a new Ukraine war commander to take centralized control of the next phase of battle after its costly failures in the opening campaign and carnage for Ukrainian civilians.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is calling for the expansion of new, major diplomatic shifts in the Middle East and North Africa that could upend some of the region's long-standing disputes.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will try to use his three-nation tour of the Middle East and North Africa to reassure wary Israelis and Arabs that the Biden administration is committed to the region’s security at a time when Washington is confronting multiple foreign policy challenges.

Iran’s foreign minister says his country is ready to reach a lasting agreement with world powers and is blaming the latest failure to revive Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal on an allegedly “unrealistic vision” by the United States

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to the Mideast and North Africa next week as the Biden administration strives to keep allies and partners united in opposition to Russia's war in Ukraine.

Iran’s Foreign Minister has landed in Damascus where he is to discuss with top officials mutual relations between the two strong allies and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

A Ukrainian police officer in Mariupol has warned the besieged port city has been “wiped off the face of the earth” and has pleaded with the American and French presidents to provide his country with a modern air defense system.

The Syrian presidency says President Bashar Assad has travelled to the United Arab Emirates, marking his first visit to an Arab country since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011.

Just a year ago, Naftali Bennett was struggling for political survival.

Senior U.S. commanders tell Congress that the complete U.S. military withdrawals from Afghanistan and Somalia last year have made it more difficult for the U.S. to counter terror groups that aspire to attack America and its allies.

Far from the icy battlefields of Ukraine, Russia President Vladimir Putin is busily advancing Russia's footholds and influence in Africa and the Middle East.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved bringing in volunteer fighters from the Middle East, particularly Syria, to fight in Ukraine.

Russia's airstrike on a children's and maternity hospital in Ukraine is stirring memories of the Kremlin's past aerial campaigns waged in Chechnya and Syria.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought up deep divisions in the Middle East, where Moscow has made itself a key player.

Russia has announced the establishment of safe corridors to allow civilians to leave Ukrainian towns and cities under siege

Syria's defense ministry says two civilians have been killed by an Israeli airstrike on military positions near Damascus.

The endless stream of people walking in line, heading to the border to escape Russia's war on Ukraine, has marked a jarring déjà vu for some in the exodus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first military campaign outside former Soviet Union areas was in Syria, where in 2015 he threw his country’s firepower behind President Bashar Assad

Russian President Vladimir Putin's first military campaign outside former Soviet Union areas was in Syria, where in 2015 he threw his country's firepower behind President Bashar Assad.

Economically-battered Syria has decided to cut spending in an effort to reduce the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, concerned that oil and wheat prices could sharply increase

Economically-battered Syria has decided to cut spending in an effort to reduce the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, concerned that oil and wheat prices could sharply increase.

The government of economically-battered Syria decided Thursday to cut spending in an effort to reduce the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, concerned that oil and wheat prices could sharply increase, the state-owned news agency said. Syria’s economic minister, Mohammed Samer Khalil, said Crimea offered to export wheat to Syria. Syria, struggling after more than a decade of war, relies mostly on wheat imports from Russia and oil shipments from its other ally, Iran.

The Jordanian military says a crackdown on drug smugglers along the Syrian border is delivering results

Landmark ruling in Germany makes former secret police officer Anwar Raslan the highest-ranking official from the Assad regime convicted of the charge to date.

The conviction in a German court was seen as a watershed moment in the fight for accountability in Syria’s war.

The world's first criminal trial on torture in Syria's prisons ended Thursday in Koblenz, Germany — the first time a high-ranking ex-Syrian official faced Syrians in open court in a war crimes case.

Hackers have targeted the website of an Israeli newspaper

The count, by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, comes after more than a decade of a war that's killed at least 350,000 people and displaced millions.

After luring asylum-seekers to the EU as a political stunt, Belarus has now sent people back to the dangerous place they were escaping, rights groups and migrants tell NPR.

The count, by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, comes after more than a decade of a war that's killed at least 350,000 people and displaced millions.

It was the deadliest attack in Damascus in several years, and especially rare since government troops in 2018 captured suburbs once held by insurgents in Syria's decade-long conflict.

Representative Adam Kinzinger says Biden administration officials should take responsibility for errors in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Iran and Syria vowed on Sunday to take “mighty steps” to confront U.S. sanctions imposed on the two regional allies, saying their relations will strengthen under Iran’s new leadership. The announcement was made by Iran’s new Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was received at the airport a visit to Damascus by his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad. Iran has been one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s strongest backers, sending thousands of fighters from around the region to help his troops in Syria’s 10-year conflict that has killed half a million and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Syrian President Bashar Assad was sworn in Saturday for a fourth seven-year term in the war-torn country. The May elections were described by the West and Assad's opposition as illegitimate and a sham. The Syrian currency is in a free fall and basic services and resources have become scarce or are offered at exorbitant parallel market prices.

Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree Sunday giving hundreds of thousands of civil servants and military members a 50% salary increase amid a harsh economic and financial crisis and price increases for vital products. The Syrian economy has been hard hit by a decade of war, Western sanctions, widespread corruption and most recently a severe economic and financial crisis in neighboring Lebanon. The last salary increase was announced in November 2019.

The gunshot victim told Fresno police he saw three people physically assaulting a man. When he tried to intervene, he was shot in the leg.

President Joe Biden will seek to stave off another surge of civilian suffering in the devastating war in Syria when he meets President Vladimir Putin this week, appealing to Putin to drop a threat to close the last aid crossing into that country. Russian forces have helped Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime survive the more than 10-year conflict and Putin hopes to be a broker for Assad in any international reconstruction effort for that country. Russia holds the key veto on July 10 when the U.N. Security Council decides whether to extend authorization for the aid crossing from Turkey.

For the sake of the Syrian people, Assad should go, but that change of regime isn't going to happen at the US's behest.

Syrian President Bashar Assad was re-elected in a landslide, officials said Thursday, ushering in a fourth seven-year term in the war-torn country following an election described as illegitimate and a sham by the West and his opposition. At least 8 million, mostly displaced, live in those areas in northwest and northeast Syria. Syria’s parliament speaker, Hammoud Sabbagh, announced the final results from Wednesday’s vote.

Despite an ongoing war that has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and crippled the economy, many Syrians ask, "Who else?"

Groups of angry Lebanese pelted buses and cars carrying Syrians expatriates and refugees heading to the Syrian Embassy in Beirut with stones and sticks on Thursday, outraged over what they perceive as an organized vote for President Bashar Assad. Meanwhile, some Syrian refugees reported being pressured to cast their ballot with threats of physical violence or confiscation of documentation that could lead to loss of refugee status, the U.N. refugee agency said. Assad is running for a fourth seven-year term — facing symbolic competition from two other candidates — in a vote all but guarantees to bring him back as president.

One of two candidates running against longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad is casting himself as the first opposition representative to vie for the country’s top post. Mohamoud Marei said Tuesday that as a critic of the government who remained in Syria, he may have the keys to solving the ruinous 10-year conflict. Assad has held power since 2000, when he took over after the death of his father who ran the country for 30 years.

Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree Sunday granting amnesty and reducing sentences for several categories of crime committed before May 2, state news agency SANA said. It also comes ahead of the May 26 presidential elections, which Assad will most likely win for a fourth, seven-year term in office. Since Syria’s conflict began in 2011, Assad has issued similar amnesties, the latest of which came in September 2019.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria said Wednesday that key global players are interested in stepped-up international diplomacy to “unlock progress” toward ending the country’s 10-year war. Geir Pederson called for exploratory discussions to “help test possibilities and bridge the gaps of mistrust.” Pedersen told the U.N. Security Council he spoke about the need for more constructive and comprehensive diplomacy to make progress toward resolving “this highly internationalized conflict” with senior officials from a number of countries.

“We want them to know we are committed to this region.”How committed President Biden will be to keeping troops in Syria is uncertain, however. Russian and Syrian troops are just across the Euphrates River from Conoco, but both sides avoid straying into the other’s territory. When Islamic State emerged in 2014, seizing a third of Syria and Iraq for its so-called caliphate, Obama rushed troops back to Iraq and approved airstrikes in Syria. AdvertisementFormer President Trump pledged repeatedly to pull out after the near-total defeat of Islamic State in early 2019. A massive M777 howitzer artillery gun mostly sits idle, since there aren’t many Islamic State fighters to target, said Army Lt. Melissa Cardona.